Scorsese strikes again! There's gold in that there film. Casino is the sort of film that just sucks me in. The place is real, the characters are believable, and with the narration (which shifts from character to character) you just get sucked into these people's world.

It's not that these people are doing anything complicated. They point out that they are stealing candy from a baby. You get the impression that even they don't believe how easy life got.

This is a long movie, and the first two hours just fly by. This is where we're learning all about how professional gambling works, and what's the best way to hurt people. But the third hour just decays into people bitching and screaming at each other. Frankly, I could have lived without this part.

The end wraps up everything nicely, and you get the impression that you just watched a dramatization of real history -- and you did. If this were fiction, I would have preferred a different ending. But this is a close-to-the-truth story. These people really did exist, and the major events happened, so we're stuck with an ending I don't like, nor would I want to change under these circumstances.

Casino is flashy, trashy and, in a few places, funny. The people involved are not people you should trust to watch your wallet. But they are fun to watch, and Scorsese re-affirms himself as one of the five best directors in the American cinema.